


Red Curtain

by orangeflavor



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, For funsies, House Stark Family Feels (ASoIaF), Humor, Romance, a little sexiness too, background Arya/Lyanna, background Robb/Jeyne - Freeform, some good ole summer fun, unless I've completely overestimated my comedic prowess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27039610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeflavor/pseuds/orangeflavor
Summary: “He’s pretty sure he left that closet at least half in love with her.”  -  Jon and Sansa.  Summer's for lovin', after all.Oh, and crisis.  That, too.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 78
Kudos: 190





	1. No Take-Backs

**Author's Note:**

> Should I be starting a whole new fic? Absolutely the fuck not.
> 
> _Am_ I, though?
> 
> Look - we're all fools here. I've learned to accept it. So, come have fun with me.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Red Curtain

Chapter One: No Take-Backs

" _He's pretty sure he left that closet at least half in love with her."_ \- Jon and Sansa. Summer's for lovin', after all. Oh, and crisis. That, too.

* * *

"No, no, but you see, gravity doesn't matter here," Theon argues. "You're up in space. It's like a fucking swimming pool up there, just, you know, minus having your trunks hauled halfway down your ass every time you surface."

"Theon, it's not gravity keeping your jizz in your dick," Jon laughs, reaching for the ice bags Robb hands him over the edge of the pickup truck.

Robb heaves another bag over. "This is _literally_ the dumbest conversation you two have ever had."

Jon points at Robb accusingly. "Hey, okay look, I can _guarantee_ you this isn't the dumbest conversation Theon's ever had." He swings the offending finger over to Theon in point.

"Dude, how do _you_ know how that shit works in space? You ever been?" he defends, fumbling with one of the coolers.

Jon rolls his eyes. He hadn't really expected he'd be arguing the finer points of masturbating in space when he got up this morning, but in hindsight, he probably should have, considering the day's company.

"I'll be back with the beers," Tormund calls out, coming around the truck as Robb jumps down.

Jon tosses him the keys in answer. "Grab some spritzers, too."

"You got it, Buttercup," Tormund says, winking, climbing into the driver's seat.

After a glare his buddy's way, Jon looks back to find Robb and Theon staring at him with matching smirks.

He shrugs. "What?"

"Spritzers?" Robb asks, closing the truck bed with a cocked eyebrow.

Jon grabs the cooler handle opposite Theon's hold. If he's lucky, maybe he can upend him. "Your mom likes 'em," he mumbles. And then he throws an arched brow Robb's way. "Actually, your dad, too."

"You're such a fucking suck-up," Robb laughs, shaking his head, piling in what bags of ice he could fit into the cooler.

"Your boyfriend's kinda cute, you know. He's not staying?" Theon asks with a nod sent back at Tormund as he peels off in the truck.

Jon throws a swing Theon's way and he guffaws in answer while ducking, before nearly dropping his end of the cooler, scrambling for balance.

Serves the fucker right.

Between the two of them, they get the cooler up the driveway. Robb trails behind them with a bag of ice on each hip, looking every bit the expectant father he is. "Tell Tormund to come by. He always makes a party more eventful," Robb goads.

"You mean more expensive," Jon throws back.

He's still paying off that bill for the pool table Tormund wrecked back at The Crow, after all. And yet, it's _him_ who gets all the dirty glares from the bartenders now.

And really, what's up with that? It's not like he's the man's mother.

Jon shakes his head, glancing back at Robb. "Anyway, he's got a shift tonight."

Theon wrinkles his nose. "The brewery?"

"Yeah."

Robb mock pukes.

"What? It's a good gig," Jon defends.

"It's where you met Ygritte," Robb points out, shifting the ice over his hips.

Jon refrains from rolling his eyes. Only barely. "She's not a bad person. We were just... bad for _each other_."

"Ever heard of that river in Egypt?" Theon quips. " _De_ -nile?"

Jon throws him an exasperated look. "Why do you hate her so much anyway?"

Theon's smirk instantly dips into a frown entirely too somber for such a face. "She borrowed my copy of 'The Thing' and never gave it back."

Jon actually laughs at that one.

"See!" Robb butts in, "Those are the worst kinds of people. She's a taker, man. What you need is a giver."

"Someone like Tormund," Theon supplies cheekily. "Seriously though, what is it with you and redheads?"

Jon drops his half of the cooler weight for a brief moment in response, just before catching it again, and Theon's yanked hard left with the motion.

"What the fuck, man?" He rubs his shoulder, glaring at Jon, but Jon's too busy laughing, before he stumbles over a sprinkler head when they dip off the driveway. "Agh, fuck, that hurt."

"Karma's a bitch, Snow," Theon taunts. "And she's _my_ bitch."

Jon opens his mouth but Robb cuts him off, ushering them off the driveway. "Guys, left – go left. We gotta take the cooler round back anyway. Dad's already in the yard."

So they shuffle left, crossing over the Starks' large front lawn toward the side gate to the backyard.

"Watch the zinnias," Robb directs.

Jon and Theon stop simultaneously to look back at him.

"Dude," Theon deadpans.

Robb comes up short, glancing between the two, shifting awkwardly with the ice in his arms. "Mom will kill you," he says in answer.

"Do _you_ want to carry this thing?" Jon asks with a pinched brow.

Robb brushes past them toward the side gate. "Just don't step on them. Come on, come on."

They trudge onward, and Jon really does roll his eyes then because of fucking _course_ he still takes pains not to step on the goddamn zinnias.

Maybe Robb was right. He really is a suck-up.

They make it to the gate and drop the cooler, thank _god_.

"Dad! Dad, open up," Robb yells over the gate, rocking back and forth from foot to foot with that cold ass ice at his sides.

"We brought your shit!" Theon hollers, and Jon throws a smack to his chest in reprimand.

"Ow," he draws out dramatically, a hand to his chest.

Robb frowns at the gate, the gate that isn't opening. He wiggles the ice higher up his hips. Stares hard at the fence.

Theon cocks a brow at him.

"Call him," Robb says, chin jutting toward Jon.

He reaches for his phone, hands flattening over empty back pockets. "Shit, it's in my bag." The bag he left in Tormund's truck.

Theon makes a similar show opposite him.

Robb throws his head back with an exaggerated groan, dropping the bags down on the top of the cooler. "I'm not picking that shit back up again," he swears, an unexpected shudder rippling through him when he's suddenly ice-free. He clamps his hands over his chest, his t-shirt already damp and sticking to him. "Shit, my nipples," he curses.

Theon barks a laugh.

"Look, I'll call him," Jon says through a laugh. "Where's your phone?"

Robb shoos his hands away. "I got it, I got it." He pulls his phone from his back pocket, dials, waits a moment. "Yeah, Dad, we're here." He glances to the gate. "No, it's not open." He ushers toward Theon to try the latch.

It swings free as soon as he tries the handle.

Robb glares at the offending gate. "It's open," he mutters, hanging up.

Jon cocks a brow at him. "We cool to go in or...?"

"Yeah, they're coming," he assures, pocketing his phone.

And then Jon catches sight of Ned Stark coming down the long stretch of grass lining the side of the house. He's in checkered shorts, a short-sleeved button down, flip flops that squelch at his heels with each step, and Jon hides a chuckle behind his fist, because he fucking loves this man, summer fit and all. And then Benjen comes around the corner behind him, dressed similarly, jogging to catch up, a hand raised in the air in greeting and before Jon knows it, it's a rush of hugs, and claps on shoulders, and a kind of rough jostling that makes him beam, a rowdy tousle of welcomes, smiles stretched wide.

He misses this. God, he fucking misses this. The only family he ever truly felt a part of.

And then that useless, familiar guilt ripples through him.

The thing is though, he thinks his mother would have appreciated the closeness he feels with the Starks. After all, she and Ned Stark grew up living next door to each other for fifteen years, near as siblings as anyone could be. And then years had passed, and suddenly they were all adults, and maybe Ned made some better choices, and Lyanna hadn't. Maybe all of this was supposed to be ancient history. And he doesn't really know if history is supposed to be a lesson, he really doesn't. And he doesn't fucking care. Because his mom did a hell of a job with what she had, and he loved her, more than he knew he could love anyone, and she was _good_ for him, she really was, right up to the moment that she died.

She never stopped being good for him, really. Even after she died – when Ned Stark wrapped his arm around his trembling, nineteen-year-old shoulders at the funeral, let him cry into his perfectly starched collar, took him home to a warm house, gave him some hot soup and his first glass of whiskey, told him stories about his mother that had him laughing as hard as he'd been crying just earlier – that was his mother right there. That was his mother bringing Ned Stark, and all the rest of them, into his life full force. No take-backs.

It's not something he thinks too hard about most days – how his first real birthday party, when he was seven years old, was a cowboys versus dinosaurs theme, because he and Robb Stark, the stupid, loudmouth boy next door, had gotten into such an argument weeks before (and they've never really settled that one since, to be honest.) Or how the boy across the street, Theon fucking Greyjoy, had knocked on his door in the middle of the rain, holding up the tail-end of his pet iguana with a look of exasperation far older than their eleven years with a sigh of 'He keeps getting into my sister's bathroom'.

And he tries not to think about the day he attempted to teach Arya to drive in his busted up Jeep and became witness to such road rage that had him shrinking in his seat, fingers curling around the hand-hold along the roof, or the way Bran quietly demolishes him every time they play a round of Modern Warfare, sipping his perfectly iced root beer with a hint of superiority, or the way Rickon had wailed when animal control took away that stray dog they'd found in the park, huddled under a bush, whining and licking at its broken leg. Or how Sansa had –

Jon swallows thickly, mind fizzing out.

Because he remembers how Sansa helped him pick out a new suit for his first day at the firm, when his nerves had been frayed all to hell. And he remembers how she helped him sneak Robb back into the house through her bedroom window, nagging the whole way through, when he and Theon had gotten her brother drunk for the first time in highschool. And he remembers back in middle school how she helped mend the jacket his mother had given him because he didn't want her to find out that he'd ripped it riding bikes through the construction site she'd warned him to stop playing in.

And sometimes, when he least expects it, he even remembers the morning after his mother's funeral.

After spending the night, he'd been sitting out on the Starks' front step just before dawn, his hands linked between his knees, mouth fuzzy from the whiskey Ned had given him the night before, and he remembered looking up at the sky. Barely a cloud in sight. This pretty sort of blue, just on the verge of daybreak, and he remembered absolutely hating it. Wanted to throw something up into that stupid, pretty blue, make it crack and break, blow a hole straight through it, watch the pieces trickle down.

And then Sansa pushed the front porch door open.

He'd turned back to look at her, squinting in the half-light. She was standing there in the same sweatpants and tank top she'd gone to sleep in the night before, holding an opened yogurt in one hand, a spoon in the other, keeping the door open with her hip.

He's sure he'd meant to say something, but nothing really seemed to be worth saying right then, so he just looked at her. She watched him a moment, like she was still deciding whether to step out onto the porch entirely or not, and then she offered a light quirk of her lip and let the door slip off her hip and shut behind her. She sat down beside him and started to silently eat her yogurt.

It was that probiotic shit he'd seen her eating dozens of times before, lemon flavored, and it was so _normal_ suddenly – here – the morning after his mother's funeral, sitting next to Sansa Stark at the crack of dawn.

She looked at him, lip caught between her teeth. "Want some?"

And he'd let out a breath finally, all the anger bleeding from him instantly. He shrugged, a chuckle leaving him. "Sure, why not?" He opened his mouth and she spooned a dollop in obediently.

It tasted terrible. And he must have made a face, because her lips tipped down in an imperceptible frown and then she was glancing back at her yogurt. "It helps with indigestion," she said despondently, turning the tiny carton around in her hand, peering at the label.

And then Jon laughed, only it hurt. So maybe it wasn't a laugh at all. All he knew was that his eyes burned, and he couldn't look at her, and the air built up in his chest and it wasn't leaving, it just felt like choking, and he was _sure_ he was laughing now, awkwardly loud and clipped off at the end, like his own tongue hadn't expected it, and then he was pressing his knuckles into his eye socket, like he could dig the very tears out if only he could clench his fist hard enough.

The sky was so stupidly, frustratingly blue.

And his mother was dead.

"I think it's supposed to get better with time. Easier, I guess," she said quietly beside him.

Jon looked at her, brow crinkled. "What?"

"Missing her."

He frowned at that, stared hard at the half-eaten yogurt held in her limp hand as she glanced out over the lawn.

She looked at him, and her eyes were blue, too. And maybe that was supposed to mean something, but it didn't. It didn't mean anything.

"You believe that?" he asked her.

She shrugged, an earnest look on her face. "It's what everyone says."

"Sure." He looked back to his hands linked between his knees, pressed the toes of his boots into the wood beneath him, just to feel it. "I guess."

"I'm sorry she's gone." She dipped her spoon back into her yogurt but just twirled the tip of it around languidly. She shook her head, and she looked so unbearably sad. Too sad for any seventeen-year-old to ever look. "I'm so, so sorry, Jon."

His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. "Yeah, me too."

Maybe she caught the quiver in his voice. Or maybe she'd just grown tired of playing with her yogurt, hands fiddling with the spoon. Fuck if he knew. But she looked at him then.

Jon turned to look out over the lawn where the lip of the sun had just begun to peak over the houses across the way. "I don't - " He caught the break before it could fully form, swallowed it down, tried again. "I don't really know how to talk about it," he admitted. Because it was true. "Not yet."

She gave it a moment, and then, "Okay." And he figured she'd leave then. But she didn't. Or maybe she just didn't know how. But he – he –

"Can you..." And then he looked at her again, caught sight of the new sun slanting over her face, and it was bright, too fucking bright, and she raised a hand up to shield her eyes, squinting at him, and he wanted to laugh again, but he didn't know how to make it _not_ sound like crying. So he simply cleared his throat. "Can you just sit with me?"

Sansa's hand lowered, one eye still squeezed shut from the light, her mouth dipping into a frown. But it wasn't the sort of frown she'd always given him before, like the one she wore when he spilled soda over her homecoming dress, or the one she wore when Arya chose go-karting with him over swimming lessons with her, or even the one she wore when he punched Joffrey in the middle of the hall her sophomore year. No. This one was softer at the edges. And maybe it was just the morning light coming over the neighbors' roofs. Maybe it was just him being uselessly sentimental. But for some reason, her frown didn't bother him this time. Didn't bother him at all.

And damn. Was that supposed to happen?

Jon swallowed thickly, throat parched. "Will you just sit with me?" he managed again.

She set her yogurt on the step, forgotten. And then she braced her hands back on the porch ledge behind her, palms going flat over the wood. She nodded, the frown settling out into a thin, unassuming line. "I can do that," she said softly.

Jon took a breath, let it go. And then he was sure. Sitting there, staring at Sansa Stark at the ass crack of dawn, the day after his mother's funeral –

He was sure.

This was not supposed to happen.

But then, the morning passed, and so did the months, and one day Jon woke up and realized he was doing alright.

So no, he doesn't think his mother would begrudge him this happiness. Even though he misses her every damn day.

Benjen's hand on his shoulder now steadies him, and the merry-go-round of memories settles into a low hum in the back of Jon's mind. There'll be plenty enough time to get sentimental later. It's the Starks' annual cookout, after all. The first day of summer – when they stay up to the crack of dawn to greet the new season. It's got something to do with their family way back when or whatever. Making it through the night, a celebration of life, and all that cheese. Catelyn tried to explain it to him once but he was nine, and really, could she blame him for zoning out? Anyway, afterward, he'd just turned to Robb while they sat at the kitchen island, Catelyn pulling chicken nuggets out the oven for them, eyes wide as he whispered in awe, "She lets you stay up _all night_?"

Robb had nodded smugly, grabbing for the ketchup bottle with bravado, and after dinner at the Starks, Jon went home to beg his mother to let him join the party that year. She had an unofficial invitation herself for years, anyway. Why couldn't he?

Jon can now safely say that this annual cookout of theirs is the longest commitment he's ever made in his life.

"Your mother's in the kitchen," Ned tells Robb.

"Ooh, is she making deviled eggs?"

"When has she ever _not_ made deviled eggs for this thing?" Theon interrupts.

Ned only offers up a hand and a raised brow in a gesture that easily says _True_. And then he's nodding back toward the front of the house. "Use the front door. You know how she is." He reaches for one handle of the cooler, Benjen already going round the other side.

"Yeah, yeah," Robb waves off. "Shoes off in the foyer and all."

Ned gives a smile, lifting then. "Why don't you boys try to give her a hand?"

Jon feels suddenly nauseated at the idea of traversing a kitchen where Catelyn Stark is wielding any kind of sharp cutlery. "Where are the girls?" he manages to gulp out.

Stupid gulp.

Ned shifts his knowing smirk his way. "Arya and Lyanna are somewhere about, I'm sure. Jeyne's at the store getting the grill meet with Sansa and Margaery."

Okay, so maybe his palms get suddenly sweaty, and maybe his jaw ticks, and maybe he gives a disinterested shrug (a very disinterested shrug, yes, _very_ disinterested), but dammit, she wasn't supposed to _be here_ this summer.

"Oh," he gets out.

Oh.

Like a fucking idiot.

"Jeyne's at the store?" Robb asks, brows furrowed.

Oh thank god for overprotective Robb. Jon feels infinitely less under the microscope when the collective attention shifts to him instead.

"What, does she plan on carrying that all back herself?" he asks, huffing.

Ned blinks at him. "Like I said, she's with Sansa and Margaery."

"She's nearly eight months, Dad."

Theon claps a hand on his shoulder. "Dude, she's pregnant, not incapacitated."

" _You're_ gonna be incapacitated pretty soon, I swear to god."

Ned rolls his eyes at his son, hefting the cooler up with his brother on the other side. "Calm down, Robb. If you only knew some of the things your mother did when she was pregnant with you," he starts off, smile twisting.

Benjen barks a laugh at that. "Ned, do you remember when she – "

"Oh god, let's not do this, please," Robb groans, face pulled back into a grimace.

Ned just shakes his head, smile wide. "Go help your mother." And then the two older men shuffle off back into the yard, cooler and ice bags held between them.

Jon shoves his hands in his pockets, thumbs hooking at his belt loops. "So?"

Robb pulls his phone back out. "Give me a sec."

Theon throws his head back in a dramatic sigh.

But Jeyne picks up pretty quickly it seems, because Robb perks up instantly at the sound of her voice on the other end. "Jeyne, hey, babe. Dad said you were at the store?"

Jon pretends not to listen in.

Robb pouts. "We could have gotten it, babe. You know I brought Jon and Theon back today. You didn't have to – " He silences, pout turning into a slight purse of his lips. "Yeah, I know, but – " Another silence. He huffs. "Your feet aren't hurting?"

Jon grins wide at that, try as he might to smother it.

In a way, Robb and Jeyne have become a strange sort of model for Jon these last years. Not a bar, per se, but an example, at least. That much, at least, for sure. It's one of the things that threw his relationship with Ygritte into such stark perspective. Where their relationship was enduring, his was combustible. Where theirs was comfort, his was a trial. Where theirs was honest and open, his felt like a never-ending minefield.

And now: _"Your feet aren't hurting?"_

Jon wants to laugh. It's such a simple, unloaded question. But Robb may as well have said 'I'm in love with you' and it'd have meant the same thing.

So yeah. Not a bar. But a hell of a lot closer than he's ever gotten to it himself.

Theon lets out an impatient groan at Robb's phone call. Robb only glares at him. "Okay, babe. Yeah. That's fine. But wait, uh, can you pick up some of those chips I like? You know the ones. The onion thingies. The – yeah! Those! Get me some funyuns." He smiles blindingly. "Thanks, babe. Oh, and tell Sansa not to make you carry everything!" He stops, frowns. "I mean, it's not like she's – " Robb stops again, looking down. "Alright, I'm sorry, babe. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Love you, too. See you at home." He hangs up.

Theon immediately makes a whipping sound, gesture and all, a crooked smile breaking over his features, and if Jon hadn't valued his life so much, he might have done similarly. As it is, Robb is only trying to strangle Theon at the moment, which is fine by him.

"Sansa's coming?"

There. He said it. He asked.

Not so fucking difficult, after all.

Robb stops his attempt at throttling Theon to look over at Jon. "Of course, she's coming. It's the annual Starkfest." He gives him a disbelieving face.

Jon's brows hit his hairline. "I'm sorry, the what?"

"Starkfest."

Jon shakes his head as though clearing his ears. "Yeah, still didn't get that."

"Come on, doesn't it sound epic?"

"Sounds lame as fuck to me," Theon pipes up.

"That's your problem, Theon. You think your opinion matters."

Theon gives Robb a dramatically wounded look, hand to his heart. "Oh spare me, cruel viper."

Robb throws his hands in the air. "What? Bran likes it."

Theon drops his hand from his chest. The look, too. "I'm sorry, but Bran is most definitely _not_ the measurement of coolness here. What are you _on_?"

"I think Bran's cool," Jon says on a shrug, hands still in his pockets.

"Okay, you've forfeited your right to speak in this convo," Theon says.

"Oh come _on_ ," Robb says. "'Starkfest' is perfect."

"I thought she was staying at Margaery's this summer," Jon says before his courage can fail him.

And fuck, are his palms still sweating? Jon bites off a growl of frustration at himself. Fuck that shit.

Robb blinks at him. "What, Sansa?"

Jon nods. Maybe because he's afraid of saying more.

"Yeah, she is, but she's not missing the cookout. Brought Margaery, too. They've been staying at the house for like, four days now. Heading back south tomorrow though. I hear they're going to a concert down in White Harbor before they get back to Marg's."

Jon furrows his brows at that. "She's leaving tomorrow?"

Robb nods.

"She's not staying up with you guys?"

Robb waves him off. "Ah, don't worry about it. She never made it to sunrise before, anyway. Always passed out at least an hour or two away. She'd probably appreciate the sleep more, actually," he shrugs out.

Jon purses his lips. "Right."

And all at once, he's wondering if she still keeps her hair long. If she still carries that dragonfly keychain on her phone. If she still pulls at the edge of her skirt when she's nervous.

If she still hates him for last winter.

Jon clears his throat, nodding back toward the front of the house. "Your dad said Arya was in?"

Robb smiles at him, thankfully oblivious to his desperate change of subject. "Yeah, she's not taking summer classes this year. Come on."

And then they're making their way back across the front lawn. Jon still takes care to avoid Mrs. Stark's zinnias.

He wonders, briefly, if Robb isn't the only whipped one here, but he doesn't think too long on it.

They're just fucking zinnias anyway. So maybe he just cares too much about the things he shouldn't. Attaches to things that give no promise of attachment back. And damn, there's some psycho-analytic bullshit somewhere in that mess, if he looks hard enough, but he doesn't.

He's gotten pretty good at loving the transient, after all.

Sansa Stark shouldn't be any different.

It's not really something that needs another look, he finds. Not then. And not now.

They make it to the front door before he can linger long on it, and then Robb is jiggling his key into the lock, and then he's pushing the door open, and then he's hollering Arya's name into the open foyer. Something about it sends Jon to beaming.

Home.

He's home.

Thunder seems to come down the stairwell. Jon looks up to find it's Arya. He barely opens his arms in time. She launches herself at him, jumping into his arms, winding her legs around him.

"Jon!" she cries, ecstatic.

And oh _fuck_!

"Arya, fuck, my back! My back!" Jon nearly crumples from her attack, stumbling against the end of the stairwell. "Holy shit, get off me," he chokes out beneath her bone-crushing hug.

She slips from him effortlessly, huffing a strand of hair out of her face. "Old man," she grouses, punching at his shoulder with affection. She grins up at him, crooked and earnest.

He softens at the sight. "You're getting too old for that."

Arya rolls her eyes. "Or you're just getting all rickety."

"That's my vote," Theon says at his side. He opens his arms wide for Arya with an expectant smile.

"Ew," she deadpans, one hand settling at her hip.

"Missed you too, runt," he says, ruffling her hair.

"Oh fuck off, Theon." She shoves his hand away, but he just brushes further into the house.

"The boys back from school yet?" he asks into the open foyer.

Bran suddenly crosses the threshold travelling from the dining room into the den with his face almost adhered to his phone. "It's summer break, dumbass." He promptly disappears around the corner.

Theon plants his hands on his hips. "Ah, that's a yes, then."

"Hey, babe, your Dad wants you and Rickon to help get all the pool stuff out of the shed," Lyanna Mormont says then, coming down the hall toward them before sidling up beside Arya with a hand at her waist.

Arya swings an arm around her shoulder. "Lyanna, you remember my brothers," she says, motioning to the three in the doorway.

"Unfortunately." Lyanna grimaces, and it makes her already dour face even more so. And yet, her hand at Arya's waist is tender, her glance toward her girlfriend softened somewhat, and Jon has learned by now to keep his smile in check.

He watches Arya's hand curl around Lyanna's shoulder and wishes for nothing else in that moment but many more such years ahead of them.

"Good to see you're still in high spirits, Lyanna," Robb smiles brilliantly at her.

"Yeah, well, you're not _my_ brothers, thank god, soooo," she smacks her lips, turning to Arya. "Babe, you gotta get Rickon."

And just like that, the moment is shattered. Jon heaves a sigh.

"Rickon!" Arya yells up the stairwell behind Lyanna's head.

"Arya, what the fuck?" she snaps, hand to her ear.

She shrugs down at her girlfriend. Footsteps thump at the upstairs landing. "What?" an annoyed voice calls down, only a pair of socked feet in view as Jon cranes his neck up the stairs without success.

"Dad wants you."

"I'm not falling for that again."

"Fine," she says, shrugging, steering Lyanna into the kitchen. "But the boys are here."

Silence for a beat, and then the socked feet take a few cautious steps down, and Rickon's head pops out beneath the second floor obscuring the rest of the stairs. His eyes go wide. Smile, too. "Jon!" he beams, bounding down.

And fuck, it's a _man_ coming down the stairs now, not some socked feet or a boy he remembers, but a fucking _beast_ of a man. Jon teeters back, shooting straight from his lean. "Rickon?" he asks, eyes wide.

The boy – _man –_ jumps the last three steps and comes hurtling toward him, arms wide. Jon opens reflexively, afraid he'll be mauled otherwise, and Rickon slams into him, rocking him with his hug. It warms something instantly in Jon, even if the teenager's head now sits higher than his own. He frowns at that a moment, pulling back to look at him.

Theon claps a hand on his shoulder. "Shit, Rickon, what have you been eating?"

Rickon smiles down at Theon.

Holy shit, he's smiling _down_ at Theon, Jon realizes in horror. And then he squints at Rickon's chin. "What is this peach fuzz?" he laughs, letting the boy go, fingers flicking at his baby beard.

Rickon slaps his hand away good-naturedly. "You've been gone too long, man."

"Clearly."

"No hug for me?" Robb asks with a mock pout.

Rickon levels him with a dead stare. "You were literally here this morning."

"Doesn't mean I don't miss you," he croons, looping an appendage around Rickon's neck and tugging him into his chest.

"Oh god, no, stop it!"

"Come here," Robb smooches, wrestling with him through the hallway toward the back of the house. Rickon's protests drown out somewhere past the hallway bathroom.

The smile comes easy and wide along Jon's face.

Home, he reminds himself.

No take-backs.


	2. Orgel's Rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She may as well have spelled it out in the convenient magnetic alphabet along the fridge door. In big, colorful, kindergarten-sized letters:
> 
> Mistake.
> 
> That's what she was calling it." - Jon and Sansa. Summer's for lovin', after all.
> 
> Oh, and crisis. That, too.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I make no money.

Red Curtain

Chapter Two: Orgel's Rules

" _She may as well have spelled it out in the convenient magnetic alphabet along the fridge door. In big, colorful, kindergarten-sized letters:_

_Mistake._

_That's what she was calling it."_ \- Jon and Sansa. Summer's for lovin', after all.

Oh, and crisis. That, too.

* * *

The first and only time Jon Snow kissed Sansa Stark was back in middle school. She was 12, and he was 14, and neither of them were particularly good at ignoring peer pressure at that point in their pre-pubescent lives, so when they were locked in a closet for 'seven minutes in heaven' at Jeyne Poole's birthday party, well, he was just a budding teenage boy, after all.

And Sansa Stark was pretty. Always was. Except he hadn't really noticed it so specifically until that moment. She was pretty when she tucked her hair behind her ear nervously, and she was pretty when she folded her skirt underneath her knees as she settled on the floor of the closet, and she was pretty when she leaned forward and placed her hands on his shoulders in a sudden surge of courage, eyes wide and unblinking, her throat bobbing.

Hell, she was even pretty when she pulled back after the initial kiss, mortified and stuttering, when her teeth had clacked against his in her fervency, her determination. And sure, he had laughed, and she only blushed harder, her hands ripping from his shoulders instantly as though burned, and he'd known he'd fucked up then, but she was – god, she was so fucking pretty, and endearing, and she was Robb's little sister, oh god, only not so little anymore, not since the summer before, and definitely not now, and Jon had surged forward without thinking, meeting her mouth once more with his, a hand curled urgently around her arm to pull her to him, his other lighting on her shoulder, and he'd _kissed_ her.

Sansa Stark.

He'd kissed her.

Even now, he remembers the way her lashes fluttered against his cheek, and the way she'd come unbalanced, nearly tipping them to the floor, their mouths jostling together for a brief, unbearably awkward moment, before _she_ was suddenly laughing, pulling back, her fingers curling in his sleeve.

The truth is, he thinks that might have been the start of it all. Never mind the fact that they'd mutually agreed never to disclose the act to anyone else, or that they'd both admitted in the blaring aftermath that it had been a first kiss for each of them, or that the comfort and easiness of their following conversation had probably been the highlight of their imprisonment in Jeyne's closest.

Because he could _talk_ to Sansa, he realized suddenly. In different ways than he could with Robb or Arya. Because she didn't laugh at him when he said it was his first kiss, and because she said she thought he'd done rather well, even as she was blushing furiously, and because she told him she was glad it was him she got stuck with (not that she'd said 'stuck with' per se, but he didn't really mind the insinuation anyway, which was kind of refreshing to realize, if he was being honest).

A stupid game, really. But there are worse things than being locked in a closest with Sansa Stark for seven minutes.

A fumbling, wet kiss. Some self-deprecating laughter. An honest conversation about the perils of navigating teenager-ism. No big deal.

The problem though, as he discovered shortly after, was that he couldn't stop thinking about it.

He's pretty sure he left that closet at least half in love with her.

Which is _ridiculous_ , and yet, here he is, at the annual Stark summer cookout, beer in hand, trying his damnedest to look casual in his lean against the counter beside Ned when Sansa glides into the kitchen with bags of burgers and dogs and pork chops hanging from each arm. She stops short, blinking those sharp blue eyes at him, pushing her sunglasses further back along her hair, a smack to her lips.

"Jon," she greets, and it's not acidic, at least. Always the polite one, he reminds himself.

But fuck, she's still so inarticulately _pretty_. His chest heaves at the realization, his mouth parting unconsciously. He nearly slips from his lean against the counter.

See, the next time he _very nearly_ kissed Sansa Stark was last winter. And okay, directly post-break up – on her part – was definitely _not_ the time for it to happen.

"Harry's drunk. And getting handsy with his secretary," she'd said when she'd called him in the middle of what was supposed to be Harry's company's Christmas party.

"Sansa," he said, wanting to reach through the receiver and tug her to him.

"Pick me up?" she asked, voice cracking just the slightest.

"I'll be there in ten."

He was there in less.

In hindsight, it had been a long time coming. Jon knew Harry wasn't going to last. But try telling Sansa that. She was as stubborn as her sister, even if she was never so brash about it. She was the quiet sort of immovable. Like stone.

But Jon swallowed back his _I told you so_ in favor of late night tacos and sharing a park bench.

"He's intolerable," she said, wiping sauce from her lip.

Jon only hummed his agreement, biting into his own taco.

"And a shitty liar. And _sleezy_ , ugh, so sleezy. And – and not nearly as good in bed as he swears."

Jon laughed around the food in his mouth, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.

She huffed. "God's gift," she mocked. "Ha!"

Jon watched the way she picked at the wrapper of her taco, her brows furrowing. She looked at him then.

"But you knew all that," she said, more a statement than a question.

He cocked his head at her. "I did."

She sighed, shaking her head. "God, I'm so _stupid._ "

"Hey, hey, no," he said, straightening as he turned fully to her.

Sansa kept her eyes on the half-eaten taco in her lap, silent.

He wanted to wrap an arm around her shoulders, or brush a thumb across her cheek, or take her hand in his, but he still had this stupid taco in his hand, dripping sauce all over his fingers, and he looked around for a napkin, found none, got even more frustrated, heaved a sigh as he turned back to her. She was still staring down at her lap. So he just shuffled closer to her, their knees knocking, his thigh braced to hers as he tried to wipe his hand along the taco wrapper in his lap. It was all very not-suave. "Hey," he said.

She looked up, eyes blinking owlishly, as though she hadn't expected him to suddenly be so close.

But then neither had he.

Jon sucked a breath through his teeth, eyes flicking between hers when he realized he could feel the hot expel of her breath, when he realized he could count her lashes if he wished.

"His loss," he said, breathless suddenly, and _shit_ , why did he sound like that? Jon swallowed thickly.

She pursed her lips, watching him.

He took a breath. "I mean, god, Sansa, you should know by now. You're anything but stupid. You're... you're fucking exquisite, okay? And he's – Harry's a dumbass," he laughed, licking his lips.

She glanced to his mouth.

And oh. Oh no.

Jon stiffened, his breath hitching.

Her eyes flicked back up to his, and instantly, he knew what she meant to do.

Sansa leaned in.

Distantly, he remembered Ygritte. His _girlfriend._ And he was half a second away from discarding the thought entirely, considering the downward spiral they'd been in lately, and considering how much he realized he _wanted_ this. Fiercely so. Enough to send him spinning.

But that's not the kind of man he wanted for Sansa. And not the kind of man he wanted to be himself.

Hell, she'd literally just ended a relationship with a man who had no qualms about kissing a woman who wasn't his girlfriend, and here he was, about to do the same. Just a different angle on the same shitty situation. Sansa was vulnerable, and hurting, and looking for comfort in the wrong places, it was true. And he understood this, on some level, but it didn't really process like that, in the moment.

It happened more like this:

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to do much morethan kiss her, truth be told.

His hand went to her shoulder, stopping her.

(But not like that.)

Sansa froze, mouth thinning into a tight line.

Jon cleared his throat. "Sansa, I..."

She pulled back instantly, back ramrod straight. "Oh," she said, voice wavering. She took a deep breath, jaw clenched. "Oh," she said again, eyes straight ahead.

Jon fumbled with the taco in his hand, trying to set it aside on the bench. "Wait, Sansa, look, I just – "

Sansa stood suddenly, her food slipping off her lap. She looked down at it as though suddenly remembering it, her features narrowing in anger. She grabbed at the take-out bag on the bench beside her, wiping her fingers with a napkin she snatched from inside, the slip of her copper hair obscuring her face from his view for a moment.

Jon gulped back his regret. "Sansa, please, I'm sorry, I just – "

"Take me home," she said flatly, jaw clenched.

Jon sighed, standing as well, tacos forgotten. And his hands were still so fucking messy, and now it was smeared on his pants, and she was already stalking away, and _fuck_ , he was so stupid, so frustratingly stupid and fuck these goddamn tacos, he was just –

"Sansa!" he called after her.

But she'd only repeated her request to be taken home and so that's exactly what he did, and it wasn't until she slammed the car door closed and stalked up her driveway that he finally deflated in the driver's seat, a hand wiped down his face.

Because what the fuck? He picked _now_ to be an upright guy?

It wasn't like he hadn't been fantasizing about her well before things went south with Ygritte, imagining it was Sansa's legs wrapped around his waist whenever he gave in to an angry fuck. It wasn't like he hadn't brushed off plans with his own girlfriend because Sansa hit him up. It wasn't like he hadn't had it in for nearly every man she's ever dated under the petty pretext of 'just being a big brother'.

It wasn't like that at all.

Except it was.

And now he'd screwed up. Rejected her when she'd made the first move.

She hadn't called him again since then, and he'd only seen her a handful of times since, always briefly, always in the company of others, always with a stiff, practiced veil of indifference between them.

He hated it.

They were friends once. Good friends. And now... well, now Jon didn't know what they were.

"Jon! So good to see you!" Jeyne swoops in for the rescue, pressing a kiss to his cheek, before waddling over to the sink for a glass of water.

"Thanks, hon," Ned says as he makes his way over to Sansa, taking some of the bags off her arms. "Jon, will you help Sansa take the rest of it to the other fridge?" he asks, and _jesus christ_ , Jon is beginning to think the man has it out for him.

But he sets his beer down anyway, grunting his ascent before Sansa can refuse his help and he spreads his hands out in a 'gimme' motion toward her.

That earns him a reluctant smirk and a shake of her head and damn, it does something to his chest that leaves him nearly winded. But he can't help smiling in return, and maybe this won't be so bad. Maybe she doesn't hate him. Or maybe it's just that damned politeness of hers. His smile wilts at the edges at the thought, just slightly, but he's tired of this melodramatic shit, and he just _misses_ her and he hopes she misses him, too, holy _hell_ does he hope she misses him, too.

They make their way to the garage through the side kitchen door where the Starks store their second fridge for such things. Big enough for Catelyn Stark's largest casserole dish, and big enough for Aunt Lysa's punch bowl, and Rickon's stash of cream sodas. Jon offers an awkwardly wide, close-lipped smile when he opens the fridge door and Sansa just scrunches her nose as she squats down, pushing her sunglasses further back on her head and then she starts to rearrange the contents.

"You just got in?" she asks.

"Yeah." He clears his throat. "Yeah, Robb just picked us up at the train station."

"Long trip?"

He shrugs one shoulder, shifting the weight of the bags over his arm. "Couple hours."

"You should make it more often, then," she says, eyes still on the fridge.

He doesn't test that one. Doesn't really know how to, anyway. So he just hums in acknowledgement.

She glances up at him, hair swinging over her shoulder. "Robb misses you," she says in explanation.

"Do you?" The words are out before he can catch them. He stands there staring down at her.

She blinks, mouth pursing. And then she reaches for one of the bags off his arm and he hands her the extra burger patties wordlessly.

"Sansa..."

"Let's just... not," she says.

And _god_ , he wants to bash his head into the freezer right then. He blows a breath through his lips and rakes a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, Sansa, I never meant to – "

"I'd really rather you just forgot about it," she says, attention fixed back to the fridge.

He takes a moment, thinking on it. He doesn't really want to forget it though, that's the thing. But at the same time...

She gives a rough chuckle. "I mean, I was probably still drunk from the party, and feeling spiteful toward Harry, and you were there, and you were, well, _you_ , and I think I just made a really stupid choice that had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me and that... that wasn't right." She catches her breath, looking back up at him. "I didn't mean to use you like that. Or make you uncomfortable."

_Nothing to do with you_.

Jon blinks at her, mouth tipping open. Because what the _fuck_? What the – how could she – just what –

Now he really, _really_ wanted to bash his head in. "Sansa," he grouses. What was going _on_?

"Dogs."

He rears back. "What?"

She opens an expectant palm toward him. "The hotdogs."

"Oh." He shakes his head, fumbling with the bag as he digs out the hotdogs, handing them over obediently and then –

Wait. Stop that.

Why is she so good at distracting him?

"Sansa, look – "

"And I'm sorry."

He swallows back his reply instantly.

She turns her gaze back to the fridge, tapping a nail nervously along the crisper drawer. "You don't have to worry. It won't happen again."

His mouth clamps shut, and now he's practically crawling out of his skin, ready to scream at her, and yet, god, if she only knew how much he had wanted to kiss her then, or just how much _more_ he would have let her do to him, spiteful or not – but he's not sure that's the sort of thing she wants to hear right now, not if it was only ever a mistake to her.

She may as well have spelled it out in the convenient magnetic alphabet along the fridge door. In big, colorful, kindergarten-sized letters:

Mistake.

That's what she was calling it. That's what kissing him would mean to her. A mistake.

And you know, he is really, _really_ starting to regret ever coming into this garage with her. Maybe awkward not-knowing is better.

Jon frowns, hand curling over the open fridge door. He opens his mouth, but the beeping of the fridge interrupts him, that stupid alert when the door is left open too long, and then Sansa is pushing the dogs further back on the shelf, asking for the pork chops, and they get the fridge stocked and closed in a matter of seconds.

Sansa stands then, and she's close. Real close. And Jon doesn't step back.

But she does. And maybe that should tell him something. Something he hadn't really wanted to consider before.

Sansa brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "Thanks," she says.

And everything he'd thought to say is suddenly deflated in his chest. Useless. He starts to bunch the empty grocery bags together. "Yeah," he says, and he can't help the edge to his voice.

"Jon?" she asks, a hand going to his arm.

He looks up at her then.

She's nervous, he can tell. And not because he knows this through some stupid love osmosis, but because he fucking pays attention. Because he knows what it means when her brows furrow like that, and when she pushes her lower jaw out just the slightest, and when she leans her head unconsciously to the left. Because he's known this girl since she was born, and he'll know her years from now, without doubt. Because he's become attuned to every minute detail of her. Because he doesn't know how to stop paying attention to Sansa Stark.

"Are we good?" she asks, tentative and soft.

And fuck no, they're not good. He's anything but good around her. Hasn't been for years, actually. But that's not what she needs right now, apparently. Or maybe he's just a coward, in the end. But he thinks he can live with that. If it's between being a coward or a mistake, he thinks he can live with that.

"Yeah," he croaks out – tries to mean it. He reaches for her arm, gives it an affectionate squeeze. "Of course."

And yeah, in the end, he just misses her. Misses the smile she gives him just then, easy and free.

It makes things a little easier.

His hand slips from her arm then.

She glances back toward the kitchen when she hears a loud bang and Arya's whine through the closed door. Instantly, the tension snaps, her chuckle lighting the way for his own mirth, and he's laughing then, a hand reaching back to rub the nape of his neck. "I don't think your sister's good though," he jokes.

She shakes her head. "And you were looking forward to seeing this family again?" she mocks.

He shrugs, leaning back along the closed fridge door. "Stuck with you, I guess."

She leans back beside him, arms crossing. "I'm glad you were able to make it." It sounds honest. Real.

Jon likes the sound of it.

"You, too." And he means it, he finds. He really does. "Going back tomorrow, though, I hear?"

She nods. "Yeah, Marg and I are trying to make a concert."

"Think you'll make it to sunrise?" he teases.

Sansa rolls her eyes. "I've never made it before."

He nudges her shoulder with his own. "Come on. Just try. You can sleep on the train."

She arches a brow at him.

"I've got a good feeling about tonight."

"Oh god, now I'm scared," she laughs.

"What?"

"None of your 'good feelings' have ever boded well for me."

"That's not true," he defends, a dramatic hand to his chest as though wounded. And damn, he thinks Theon is rubbing off on him. Not good. That is _not good_. He drops the hand instantly.

But Sansa only laughs, shaking her head. "Look, no promises, okay? But I'll try to hang in there."

He smiles cheekily at her. "That's all I ask."

She juts a finger into his chest then. "But you better not give me any shit if I pass out too early, okay? This is a 'no shit-giving zone', you hear me?" And then she crosses her hands before her, swipes them through the air. "Absolutely no shit."

He holds his hand to his chest like a goddamn boy scout. "Absolutely no shit," he swears solemnly. And god, she's just so fucking cute when she narrows her eyes at him.

But she leans back along the fridge again, smiling, and he thinks he can do this. He thinks he can relearn 'normal' with her.

"Work's been good?" she asks.

He rolls his eyes then, a hand wiping over his beard. "Same old, same old," he says.

The thing about inheritance law, see, is that the work is actually pretty fucking boring. And tedious, holy hell, so mind-numbingly tedious. And yet, working probate as a paralegal has introduced him to some truly interesting individuals. The ones that are preparing their wills, well, half of them end up waxing nostalgic with him, a stranger, just sitting there in their living room trying to get a signature out of them. And the stories! Oh man, the stories he's heard. But he likes to let people talk. Likes to listen. There's a lot someone will reveal when they think they're at the end of their life. A lot of candidness you don't find elsewhere. And sure, when he gets back to the office, he's often knee-deep in documents and his eyes are red from too much computer screen staring, but it's... oddly fulfilling. In a strange, coming-together kind of way – preparing an estate.

But then the other half he deals with are an assortment of paranoid upper-middle classers, stringent career military, young finance majors, and the occasional new parent.

He thinks of his mother then.

And it's not a glamorous job, certainly, but back when he was nineteen, and his mother hadn't left an executor, hadn't even left a will, back when his mother's childhood home had slipped from his fingers to some distant cousin, back when Ned and Benjen had hired a lawyer for him and made sure to secure enough of his inheritance to live by – he remembers what it felt like to navigate the 'after' with no clear discernment of what 'after' was supposed to look like, or how he was supposed to achieve it, or hell, how to even submit her death certificate to the DMV or who to call to turn off her water and electricity or how to change his phone plan from 'family' to 'single'.

How to settle the minutiae of death.

Jon figures he knows a thing or two about that now.

It's a strange, disconnected kind of experience. Tying up the ends of another's life. Maybe that's what got him. The cleanliness of it. The closure. Somehow outside of himself and yet, intricately tangled in it.

And Jon's sure there's a joke in there somewhere about it, but for the life of him, he can't figure it out just yet. He's stopped looking for punchlines a long time ago. Now, he just... is. Joke or not. He just is. There's a sort of peace to it.

And a paycheck's a paycheck, so maybe that's all it really is. Yeah. That's all it really is.

"It's the slow season," he says then, not having the words to really explain the rest. And isn't that just surreal? That probate has a slow season?

(He doesn't tell her that the majority of deaths happen around the holidays, that they happen in winter. But he thinks she knows this, even if he doesn't say. And it's not the kind of thing he whips out at the dinner table anyway, so he keeps his facts kept securely beneath his tongue – dismally objective as they are.)

But Sansa just nods, humming an acknowledgement. "I hear Mr. Mormont's been doing better."

Jon rubs along the back of his neck, stretching as he lets out a laugh. "Yeah, I don't think that guy's kickin' it any time soon."

Sansa nods sagely. "Good to hear." She drops her head back along the fridge, grin cracking wide. "Lyanna told me earlier, and I quote, 'The old bear doesn't know how to die'." She glances to him out of the corner of her eye.

"Honestly, the guy's revised his will like seventeen times at this point. I don't think he knows the meaning of 'terminal'."

They joke about it now, but five years ago, when Lyanna's uncle got the diagnosis and he'd first gone to Jon's firm, it certainly hadn't been a joking matter.

Now though – well, laugh so you don't cry, right? Mormont's a tough one, anyway. And he's the sort that doesn't make peace until he's ready. " _Growing old ain't for pussies,"_ as he'd said. Or was that Lyanna? Shit, he doesn't even know at this point.

Jon chuckles again. "Those two were cut from the same cloth."

"I'm glad she has Arya," Sansa muses softly then. "Just, you know – when it happens." She glances to Jon. "She'd never let her drown."

"No, she wouldn't."

A somber silence descends then, and with anyone else, it might have felt uncomfortable, or oppressive, but with Sansa it's just... contemplative. An easy sort of lull.

He picks at an imaginary thread along the hem of his t-shirt. "No, she'd sit with her," he says, and he doesn't know why.

Except he knows precisely why.

Because he'll always remember that morning on the Starks' porch and how she'd sat with him in his grief and never demanded anything or tried for meaningless words. How she knew he wasn't ready for some grand pep talk but he also wasn't ready to send her away.

_Will you just sit with me?_

How she just... stayed. How she stayed.

Yeah. He's not forgetting that any time soon.

Something comes over her face then that he can't really identify. But it's unnerving, and a little too scrutinizing for his taste, so he clears his throat, pushes off the fridge, grabs at the bunched-up, forgotten grocery bags along the counter beside them. "I swear, you Starks take in people like stray dogs," he mutters, a smirk at his lips.

She cocks her head at him. "Says one very happy puppy," she laughs pointedly.

He rolls his eyes then. "Alright, alright, move it or lose it, toots," he says, shooing her away.

She peels off the fridge and heads to the kitchen with a broad, knowing smile.

And just like that, he's okay again.

Jon breathes deep, exhales slowly.

It's summer, goddamn it – his favorite day of the year, with his favorite people around him. So why is he making it so much more complicated?

Jon shakes his head, following her out. In a matter of moments, he's bombarded by Bran and Theon trying to settle their argument over the latest DLC for their favorite video game, and he loses Sansa in the great expanse of the house, as she's ushered down the hall by Margaery, who offers him a short salute and a wink as a greeting.

"Did you bring your muscles?" Catelyn asks him suddenly, tearing his attention from Sansa's disappearing figure and halting Bran and Theon's argument around him as she plops an insanely large bowl of potato salad into his arms and nods toward the backyard in silent direction.

He nods dutifully at her. "Always, Mrs. Stark." He gives a wink for good measure, never missing her sly tut, though she tries to hide her smile. But it's enough. She's always been a woman of quiet affection, after all, speaking through actions rather than words. A stern look as she brushed the curls out of his eyes on he and Robb's first day of school, and firm, agile fingers when she taught him how to tie a tie, and a reluctant sigh as he'd ushered her into the selfie he took at last summer's cookout, even when her hand braced warm and steady at his back.

Maybe it was because she knew what it meant to lose a mother. Maybe because she was a mother herself. Maybe because you never really unlearn these things.

Jon makes his way outside through the sliding glass door, hulking potato salad in tow, and by the time Ned and Benjen have stopped the grill from smoking, and Rickon has grudgingly toted out the watermelon, and Jeyne has started husking the corn, the summer sun falls low and warm along the pool's waters just past the patio set. Bran and Arya arrive to the table wrapped in beach towels, and Margaery shrieks when Arya shakes her wet hair out at her, though she gets her back with a toppled beer into her lap, all by accident, of course, Margaery _swears_ , and Sansa and Lyanna are howling with laughter while Ned and Catelyn try to wrangle everyone into their seats and Jon is – Jon is –

Happy. Stupid fucking happy. So happy it's hurting his jaw, and he thinks his smile might crack his face in two if he keeps it on any longer, so he tears into his burger instead, leaning back as he watches dinner unfold.

The food is demolished in record time, of course, and Robb offers to go get Jeyne's famous nectarine butter cake out of the fridge, dragging a bemoaning Lyanna behind him toward the kitchen to help cut up Arya's brownies with an argument of _'be the better significant other'_.

Arya smirks at her girlfriend's retreating form, bringing her beer to her lips.

"Made those brownies 'special' this year, did you?" Theon asks pointedly.

Arya shrugs one shoulder. "I'm not Bran."

"Hey," Bran defends, looking very much like he's already slipping into a food coma without any further help. "I have sleep issues, as you all know."

Sansa rolls her eyes, rising to help her parents clear the table, and the image of her blurs just the slightest. Yup. Alcohol's kicking in now. But Jon's perfectly warm and contented, so he just settles further into his seat with his hands folded over his very full tummy.

"This innocent act is absolutely _not_ believable, just so you know," Sansa jokes, once their parents are out of ear shot and through the sliding glass backdoor already.

Arya shrugs again. "Not like Lyanna would notice if I pinched her stash anyway," she laughs.

"What was that I heard?" Lyanna asks through the open back door.

Okay, so maybe not quite out of ear shot.

Jon chuckles as Sansa pinks with the realization.

Arya cranes her neck over the back of the patio chair. "What, babe, I'm not even – it's not like I'm – oh my god, put that down!" Arya vaults over the chair, toppling it, her beer sloshing over Theon's shoulder. She ignores his indignant 'Christ, Arya!' in favor of scrambling through the back door into the kitchen as Rickon keels over in a fit of laughter across from them.

"How'd she manage to keep that beer in her hand?" Bran muses dully beside Rickon, watching Arya flee.

"She _didn't_ keep it in her hand," Theon grouses, wiping at his shirt. Beside him, Jeyne is offering napkins, dunking one into her ice water and dabbing at his shoulder. He shoos her hands away after a moment. "Fuck it, it's a lost cause." He stands up and reaches back to pull the shirt over his head, tossing it to his abandoned chair. "Pool time!" And then he's sprinting toward the pool in his trunks, canon-balling off the deep end.

"Theon!" Sansa shrieks. "You'll get a cramp!"

And _god_ , she's so fucking adorable, Jon can barely manage to hide his smile behind his fist. But no one's watching him anyway, because Bran's already following Theon's example with an exaggerated whoop, and Jeyne's still fretting over the abandoned beer-stained shirt, and Margaery's still happily chatting away with Benjen in their little oblivious bubble at the far end of the table, and isn't _that_ just a little unsettling because –

Jon shakes himself. No way. He doesn't even know how to begin feeling about that one.

"Score," Rickon says beside him gleefully, reaching for a beer from the ice bucket at the center of the table.

Catelyn swipes the beer from beneath Rickon's lips, appearing suddenly behind him. "Excuse me, little man."

Rickon makes a face. "Mom, I'm seventeen."

"And still so good at whining," she says sickly sweet, before she levels him with a deadpan look. "No."

Jon chokes on a swig of beer when he can't contain his laugh.

Rickon turns imploring eyes on Ned, who's come out the backdoor just behind Cat. He holds his hands up in surrender immediately.

Yeah, Jon thinks, because _that's_ ever worked in this household.

"Your mom said no," Ned says in sympathy.

_Whipped_ , Jon thinks, smirking at the exchange.

Rickon huffs, pushing his chair back and turning for the house. "We got any sprite?" he asks no one in particular, stalking away.

Jeyne looks after him with pity a moment before tossing Theon's shirt aside and going to help him raid the fridge. Or maybe help Robb escape the mania that is Lyanna and Arya in the kitchen currently. Jon's not particularly sure.

They never really make it to dessert anyway, as the Stark bunch ends up collectively piling into the pool, even Sansa, after dutifully tracking a half hour on her watch and entering the water not a second earlier. Bran and Arya take to chicken fighting on Jon and Theon's shoulders, Ned and Cat end up curled together on the swinging bench on the other side of the yard, and Jeyne and Robb have a splashing contest while she sits at the edge with her feet kicking water. Jon barely even notices the pool lights kicking in, or the lightning bugs coming out over the lawn, until Benjen puts on one of his old school records, their usual signal that evening had well and truly commenced, as well as Benjen's drunken nostalgia – although Margaery taking him up on a dance across the deck is most definitely new.

"Oh god, she's dancing with him," Sansa says, almost panicked, straightening up from her lazy hang over a pool noodle.

Jon laughs as he treads water. "It's just a dance."

She eyes him shrewdly. "A dance is never just a dance with Margaery."

Bran kicks languidly past them balancing his stomach over a beach ball. "It's not the first time they've dance."

Theon scrunches his nose at the comment.

"What are you talking about?" Arya kicks at Bran's ball, nearly toppling him, and he glares back at her.

He rights himself easily, continuing past them. "Last Christmas."

"What?" Sansa says, blinking wide-eyed at the comment.

But Bran is gone, trailing after Rickon in the deep end.

Sansa points at him, glancing around to each of them in turn. "How does he know that? How does he know that when _I_ don't even know that?"

Theon shrugs, kicking back to the ledge. "The boy's a mutant."

"Yes, okay, but _hello_ – best friend here."

Arya wiggles her brows at Sansa. "Did you know Rickon snuck Shireen out through the garage window one time when Mom nearly caught them?"

"I swear to god, Arya, if you tell Mom – " Rickon suddenly hollers from the other end of the pool, spluttering water.

Jon and Theon bust out laughing simultaneously.

"Oh my _god_ ," Sansa laughs, "Anything else you heathens want to share that I've missed?"

Arya reaches her arms back along the ledge behind her, chuckling. "Nah. Nothing as good as you and Jon making out in Jeyne Poole's closet." And then her face drops instantly, realization at what she'd said hitting her like a truck. Her eyes shoot to Jon instantly.

He's pretty sure he's just snapped his neck though, with how quickly he looks at her.

Arya mouths a silent, pained 'I'm _sorry'_ , bringing her hands together quickly like a prayer.

Theon's laugh putters out over the water. "What?"

Fun fact: Jon is just the slightest bit drunk at this point. Or at least, pretty well on the way there.

Another fun fact: He has absolutely no recollection of said confession. But it's coming in a little hazy now, the longer he thinks about it. It was just one of those nights. Arya had just broken up with Gendry, and Jon was visiting for Robb and Jeyne's engagement party, and there was a lot of alcohol, and a lot of Arya projecting the whole night, and they ended up sitting on the couch ruminating about what-ifs and lost moments and all that bullshit one talks about at one in the morning in the living room of your best friend's house after witnessing him and his soon-to-be unwrapping one too many lingerie sets to be at all comfortable.

And sure, maybe he'd _wanted_ to tell someone, even when they'd both promised not to. Maybe he was just tired of the status quo. Best friend's sister, and all that. First kiss cliché. Like it was just a memory. A fond one, sure, but just that. A memory. Not to be nurtured into something more. Not to be held. Not to be taken as anything other than what it was.

Just two nervous-as-all-hell kids discovering new ways to fit together.

Except now, he thinks he's ready to admit he'll always want more. Even when he tells himself he doesn't. Because why would he tell Arya then? Why would he voice it at all?

He can spin all the excuses he can manage, and probably will. And he can drudge up a hundred different reasons, he's sure, for why he spilled the beans. And he can tell Sansa any number of reasons why he let it slip – all except the real one. That perhaps – and this is a big perhaps, a _huge_ perhaps, the kind of perhaps that shakes you to your bones –

Perhaps she wanted him just as bad.

Jon figures this is the universe's way of letting him 'know'. Giving the push. The nudge. Making it happen. This was the universe telling him 'now' and 'her' and 'yes'. He just had to get his head out of his ass long enough to follow through on it.

See, it's kind of like that law. Or that set of laws. What is it? Fuck, Jon really wishes he'd paid attention in biology now.

Oh yeah.

Orgel's Rules. The first being: _"Whenever a spontaneous process is too slow or too inefficient, a protein will evolve to speed it up or make it more efficient."_

Now, Jon's no scientist. Of that he's sure. But he's pretty positive he's got the gist of it. And if his slow, pining ass can't get his shit together, well, here comes the 'universe', to speed things up a bit, a la Arya's big fat mouth style.

The only problem, he finds, is the way Sansa is currently looking at him.

He doesn't think he's ever seen that look on her face before. Not even when he rejected her kiss last winter. It's a blank sort of look. No pretty frown or curl of her brow. No pout or indignant shout. Just a look. A stare.

And oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Jon nearly sinks beneath the water.

Sansa pushes her pool noodle away, wading toward the stairs.

"Sansa..." he croaks out, following her.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck_.

He's just never seen her _look_ like that.

"What's going on?" Robb asks, turning as he bobs between Jeyne's legs over the edge of the pool. Her hand stills in his hair as she notices Sansa's stiff retreat.

Jon rushes a little more toward the stairs. "Sansa."

"I should go," she says, voice flat, water steaming from her as she stalks up the pool steps.

He's not far behind her, oblivious to the family's curious – or in Theon's case, utterly flabbergasted – stares.

And this would be a really, _really_ good time for that second rule to kick in, Jon thinks.

" _Evolution is cleverer than you are."_

Sansa whirls on him, and he stops abruptly, nearly slipping on the pool steps as he's reaching for a towel along the rail. He blinks chlorine-water out of his eyes when his wet curls plaster over his forehead. He wipes at them in anxious frustration. "Sansa, look – "

"You're an ass, Jon Snow." And then she whirls back around, stalking away in her pretty little turquoise bikini, snatching a towel off the closest chair.

Jon deflates instantly, standing half in and half out of the pool.

Alright, universe. Suppose that's a 'never mind', then.

"Dude, you're never getting it now," Theon goads, kicking off the floor of the pool to settle into a float behind him.

"Oh fuck off, Theon," he snarls, jumping up the remaining steps and storming after her.

Because fuck what the universe wants. And fuck Orgel's stupid fucking rules in the first place.

Evolution can suck his ass.

He's taking things into his own hands now.

Arya drops her head into her palm as Jon runs off after Sansa, dripping all along the deck.

Robb blinks dumbly at their retreating forms. "What the fuck just happened?"


End file.
